


The Name 'Yukari'

by communistkasen (bagoum)



Series: Yukabaraki is my OTP [2]
Category: Touhou Project
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:40:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28236321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bagoum/pseuds/communistkasen
Summary: A cute introduction to a series examining the history of Yukari and Kasen.
Relationships: Ibaraki Kasen/Yakumo Yukari
Series: Yukabaraki is my OTP [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2068467
Kudos: 10





	The Name 'Yukari'

**Author's Note:**

> I'm working on a series about Yukari and Kasen's relationship as it began Many Years Ago (read it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28277919/chapters/69296628). This piece is a retrospective on their relationship from their perspective, and should provide a bit of orientation going into the beginning of that series.

Some people look at this peaceful era and complain that the days which repeat unchangingly are "boring" or "repetitive". But, having lived through a time where nothing ever repeated, I prefer the predictable days which can be predictably enjoyed over the terror of uncertainty. Nobody ought to wish to live in a world where you are surprised to wake to the rising sun.

Today there is, once again, a party at Reimu's shrine. She and I sat together on the shrine's wooden edge, gossiping about Sumireko and Rinnosuke, neither of whom were present. 

I downed another cup of alcohol and sighed. "Rinnosuke knows too much, and I don't know how he knows as much as he does. It's troublesome, but it's not like I can do anything about it."

"Actually, one time Rinnosuke told us that you picked out your own name 'Yakumo'. But what about 'Yukari'? Did you come up with that yourself too?"

Normally I would avoid these kinds of questions about my past. But there should be no issue in showcasing this little fragment. It is, after all, one of the few good memories I have of the old days. I smiled, and responded: "No. The name 'Yukari' was given to me by my lover."

Silence spread like a sound wave across the shrine, and with it, every partygoer turned to face us. Reimu was frozen in place, utterly dumbstruck. And Kasen, sitting only a few meters away, was shivering in fear of what I was about to say. Good. I want to savor the sight of her face as I tell this story.

Marisa, who was frolicking with some fairies off to the side, and Sanae, who had been spying on our discussion from another group, rushed over and--

"Yukari, you had a lover? And here I was thinkin' that you had no game!"

"Oh my god oh my god, you have to tell us the story! Especially, like, how you broke up!"

"Who said anything about a breakup? We never broke up. Our love is older than Gensoukyou itself and will always be. One could even say, with only the slightest of exaggeration, that Gensoukyou itself is founded upon our love."

The silence broke into an uproar as all the attendants dropped their plates and rushed over to form circles around me. Then, once they had taken position, they all fell silent again, expecting a story.

Kasen, sweating furiously in the front row, worriedly lodged a protest. "Yukari... are you, uh, sure this is a story you want to tell here?"

Surprisingly, it was Reimu who responded first. "A-hem! I've been thinking that Yukari never really tells us about herself despite having been around for so long. In a way, she owes us this much. And this is my party, so yeah."

The crowd broke into cheers, and I had to silence them with a hand signal before I could continue. "Reimu is correct. I don't speak much of my past because most of it is suffering and death. But the time I've spent with my partner has provided me light in even the darkest of nights."

Kasen buried her face in her hands, but I could tell by looking at her ears that she was redder than her old bloodsoaked eyes had ever been.

"I can only tell you very little, so let me speak about this name 'Yukari'.

One night, and this was before I confessed to her, we were out stargazing together. She said to me,

"You know about me but I don't know about you. Tell me your name."

And I told her,

"I don't have a name. Names are just meaningless collections of sounds. You can give me one if you like, but it'd be just as pointless as every other thing people have called me.""

Kasen bristled, shaking with embarrassment, but she didn't stand out in the crowd composed half of people watching me with rapt attention and half of people wiping their teary eyes with napkins. I hadn't even gotten to the good part yet.

"Just so you know, my hair back then was black. And Yukari, of course, means purple. So she said, "Then, I'll name you Yukari. Because if you ask anyone else, they will tell you your hair is black, and you yourself think your hair is black, but the moon and the stars, utterly detached from this plane, bear definitive witness to the deep purple hue that radiates from your raiment every night.""

Some members of the crowd-- including Kasen, who had now buried her face in her knees, finding her hands insufficient-- cried, and others cheered, and I silenced them all with another signal. "Listen closely, because the end of this story is the best part. And then she said, without a moment's pause:

"You may never be able to see your own figure reflect those colors irreproducible by any of the celestial bodies wandering the firmament, but I will appreciate your beauty even where you yourself cannot.""

The crowd exploded into uproarious wails and shouts-- many, of course, of "who is it?"-- as Kasen staggered away from the pack, too stupefied to even walk properly. I can drop out of here for a while while they all calm down, so I should go check on her. I opened a gap behind me and let myself fall through it, and, locating Kasen by the border of the woods, I opened a gap in front of her and pulled her through, into the little shack I call home.

She took a moment to find her bearings, and then turned around, refusing to meet my gaze. "How could you say such... embarrassing things!"

Over so many years of deception I had become skilled at feigning emotion, but in truth, telling that story was probably more embarrassing to me than it was to her. My face was also, slowly but surely, reddening with embarrassment. 

"Embarrassing? It's because you kept saying such things in the first place that I so helplessly fell in love with you, Kasen! And every time, you would say it with absolutely no sense of shame! Take some responsibility!"

"I'm sorry...!" she cried. "If I had known what I was saying, I wouldn't have been so direct about it!"

I teetered over to the space in front of her and grabbed her by the shoulders. I wouldn't let her turn away again.

"No. I don't want you to apologize. I want you to take responsibility. Because of all the things you said and did to me, I spent all these years thinking only about when you might come back to my side. And now you're here. So don't run away from me anymore."

"Or..." I pushed her down onto the bed, our faces almost touching, and looked into her eyes. Though they had lost some of their bloody hue with time, they were still just as profound and penetrating as on the first day we met, and I could see gazing back at me from their abyssal depths the sight of my plumage glowing a deep purple in the starlight, that sight Kasen had cherished from even before our first fateful encounter. "...We can also put it this way."

I craned my head over to her ear, as she would always do back then, and whispered directly into it. "Kasen, in the time you've been away, I've gained great power. Maybe even greater than yours. So let me say this one thing back to you.

Don't try to escape. Now that you've caught my attention, your life is in my hands and my hands alone."

Meekly, she grabbed my face and pulled it in front of hers, so our eyes were once again level and our lips were only a breath's distance apart, and, closing her eyes, said with all the forwardness she was never able to muster:

"Prove it."


End file.
